Rabbit Garden
by Drowning in Ice
Summary: What are Lexaeus and Zexion's dates like? Poor Alice stumbled upon something best left unstumbled upon. LexZex/RekuZeku


Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts, Alice in Wonderland, or any related characters. I make no money from the writing or submission of this work of fiction.

I had originally been debating whether or not to list this as a crossover since it's more like the movie than the game, but I decided to screw that because no one's gonna think to look for an Alice in Wonderland crossover.

This came about mostly from me thinking that Zexion and Lexaeus are such a boring and conventional marriage-like couple, the quality time they spend together must be pretty _un_conventional.

-

"What an odd character, that Chesire Cat," Alice commented to herself as she followed the path to the Mad Hatter that had been pointed out to her. "Why, I wonder if he was quite certain he knows where I should go." A rocking-horsefly buzzed by her head and she dodged it.

Off in the distance, she heard heavy panting. She supposed it must have been the white rabbit, considering all that running around he had been doing lately. "Oh, white rabbit!" Alice called, taking quicker steps down the road. She noticed that the panting not only grew louder as she approached, but that it seemed to be coming from two different bodies. "Mister Rabbit? Are you there?" The heavy breaths continued to sound from somewhere off the road. They were interrupted by a heavy groan, then resumed, even louder than before. "M-Mister Rabbit?" She pushed aside a tangle of bushes to locate the source of the panting. "Oh my!"

In a clearing beyond the bushes were two naked men. One was small and thin with slate-colored hair, bouncing in the lap of a large, muscular brunet. Unkempt silver hair nearly covered all of the small man's face as he grabbed the brunet's face and kissed him. The larger man continued to kiss down the other's face and neck, stopping at his collarbone. The silver-haired man made quite a show of pulling at brown hair and clawing at his back as he made his up-and-down motions. He gave another loud groan, soon followed by the brunet, and then stopped moving, sitting limply against the other.

Alice knew she must have been redder than a beet; she didn't know what had just happened, but she had a dreadful feeling that she was not supposed to see it. The two men simultaneously turned and looked straight at her, stern, disapproving expressions on their faces. She gasped and drew back as their eyes suddenly pinpointed hers. She covered her mouth in fear of how they would react.

As she continued to back up, she bumped right into something solid. She turned and gasped, realizing it was the large brunet, now strangely clothed in a long, black leather coat.

"Did you enjoy the little show?"

Alice yelped and turned again as she was addressed by the smaller man, wearing the same clothing as the other.

"I-I'm terribly sorry sir," -she bumped into the tall man- "I mean sirs. I didn't mean to, I just-"

The two acknowledged each other, ignoring Alice, before walking away, disappearing into the forest. It was not until they had been gone for several moments that Alice had realized how hard her heart had been beating in her chest. They seemed to be gone now, and she shakily resumed walking down the path, unsure of how badly she wanted to continue now. Still, she had come this far, so there was no use in turning back.

The road led to what looked like the location of a tea party of some sort. An enormous table with a pink tablecloth was covered with an endless mess of teapots, cups, saucers, sweets, and condiments. The oddest part was that at the table were the two men from before, sipping tea rather casually.

"Um, hello?" she greeted nervously.

"Ah, you've come to interrupt tea as well, I see," the silver-haired one answered.

"I'm terribly sorry, but I'm looking for the Mad Hatter and the March Hare," Alice answered.

"Now where _did_ we put those two?"

"In the tall kettle with the red flower on it," the large man answered.

"Right you are." He picked up the described tea kettle and tipped it slightly. Out of the spout poked the heads of a brown-furred hare and a gray-haired old man with a large green top hat.

"You'll never get away with this!" the hare yelled indignantly.

"I should say so!" the old man agreed. "How rude of you!"

"I was celebrating my unbirthday today," the hare said haughtily, his ears standing straight up.

"Why, you don't say! Today's _my_ unbirthday!" The two reached their arms out of the spout of the kettle to shake hands.

"What on earth is an unbirthday?" Alice asked.

"It's quite simple," the small young man answered. "If it's not your birthday, it's your unbirthday." He turned the kettle upright, bringing their heads and arms back into it.

"Oh, are they going to be alright?"

"They'll be fine, they're just upset that we stopped their little parade." The silver-haired man, who seemed to do all the talking, began munching on a blueberry scone. "On the other hand, if I had to listen to them carry on for another moment, I would have put myself in a teapot." His partner gave a soft rumble of a laugh from across the table and dropped a few sugar cubes into his tea.

"Well they were just trying to celebrate this unbirthday of theirs."

"And I would have liked to celebrate mine with my dear friend Lexaeus, but we had to be found by a nosy, eavesdropping little girl."

Alice felt her face heat up as the incident was mentioned. She didn't know what they were doing or how it could be called "celebrating," but she preferred not to find out. "Please do forgive me; I really am sorry. At first I assumed you were the White-"

"Assumed, you say? Has no one told you that when you assume things, you make an ass of 'u' and 'me'? And what an ass you've made of all three of us."

"Zexion, there's no need to be sullen," the quiet brunet, now known as Lexaeus, said. "We should at least understand her predicament."

"Very well, then," Zexion acquiesced, grabbing a biscotti from a tray. "What is it you're after?"

"I was just looking for the White Rabbit," Alice answered.

"White rabbit, white rabbit... Didn't we see him before?" Zexion asked.

"Yes, but it was quite a time ago," Lexaeus answered.

"You saw him?" Alice repeated.

"Yes, but he should have passed here long ago," Zexion answered. "I hope he didn't run into any trouble in the gardens. You do know, the terrible thing about gardens is that they sometimes house garden _snakes_."

"Oh, no," Alice said. "I must go see if he is okay. Thank you both, but I must get going!" She rushed off in the direction from which she came.

"Zexion, I hope you realize what a soulless tormentor you are," Lexaeus commented.

"Lexaeus, I hope you realize that's why you absolutely adore me."

The brunet chuckled, not protesting. "Shall we go?"

"Have a scone first."

Alice was rushing back through the forest and toward the gardens when the Chesire Cat faded into sight on a tree branch.

"Hello, dear Alice," he greeted. "Aren't we suddenly in a hurry?"

"I must go find the white rabbit!"

"Oh." A round white teapot materialized between his paws. "Isn't that why you went to the Mad Hatter?"

"I did, but the two men in black say he might have run into trouble in the gardens."

"Oh yes. Those two." He sat up on his haunches.

"You didn't happen to see him, did you?"

"It's quite unfortunate, really. They offered a rather kind bribe in return of me not telling you." He lifted the lid off the teapot and the head of a very drowsy-looking mouse showed. Before it could turn to look at him, he closed the lid again, chuckling and grinning as widely as ever.

"You're not really going to hurt him, are you?"

He lied on his back to hold the teapot between his feet. He removed one of his front paws and inspected it nonchalantly. "Alice, dear, it's a dog-eat-dog world, and when you play cat-and-mouse, you play for keeps." He placed his paw back on his wrist and began to inspect the other. "I can't tell you about the white rabbit, but I'll tell you about those men. One is quite the trickster, much like myself. With him, not everything you see is there, and not everything you don't see isn't there. Of course, that's not to say that everything you see isn't there and everything you don't see is there. Otherwise, you'd be seeing nothing, and everything would be left unseen. You see?"

"I think so."

"Good." He reattached his paw and transferred the teapot back to his front paws. "Now if you'd excuse me..." He stepped down from the tree branch, walking on air and balancing the teapot on his head. Once he was on the ground, he released the mouse from the teapot. It gave a frantic cry when it noticed the cat staring at it and began to run away. The Chesire Cat began to fade away and his mouth was the last thing to disappear. "I believe you have a rabbit to find?"

"Oh dear," Alice said after the cat was completely gone. Not to be deterred from her goal, she resumed her search for the white rabbit.

When she reached the gardens, she was horrified to see that all of the flowers had been uprooted and were drying out.

"Oh, no..." She knelt down and picked up a wilted flower. True, they had been very rude to her, but they didn't deserve anything like this. "What happened?"

"You wouldn't believe it unless you saw it."

Alice looked around and saw the shrunken form of Zexion, climbing over a wilted bunch of mums.

"The earth swelled and hardened to stone," Lexaeus said, helping him over. "Their little roots were crushed."

"Are they alright?" Alice asked.

"Do they look alright?" Zexion asked.

"The Chesire Cat told me that not everything I see is real around you two. They're not... really...?"

Zexion made his way over to a fallen mushroom and leaned back against it. "If you don't believe me, you can ask them."

Alice took a piece of mushroom from her pocket and was about to bite it when Zexion interrupted her.

"Are you sure that piece is the one that makes you smaller?"

"Yes, I put them in different pockets so I would know."

"I suppose that makes sense, but making sense isn't very helpful in a world of nonsense, is it?"

"I suppose."

"The nonsensical thing to do would be to eat from the one that makes you larger to get smaller, and vice versa."

She took the other mushroom piece from her other pocket and bit off of it, and it made her grow taller than the treetops. "It was the wrong one!" she sighed.

"Oh. My mistake." Zexion was too small and she was too large for her to see the humored look on his face. She heard Lexaeus say something to him before she bit from the first piece she had taken out. The two pieces dropped from her hands during the dramatic change in size, but she was paying attention to the fallen flowers. None of them spoke to her; they were all too withered to talk.

"They really are hurt, aren't they?" Surely enough, the soil that was once soft and yielding beneath her feet was now smooth stone.

"Yes, it would appear so." Zexion began to prod at a chrysanthemum. It lifted its flower head and gasped for air before dropping back down. "Have you found that rabbit of yours yet?"

"No. And I was hoping maybe the flowers had seen him, too. The poor things."

"Well you'd better go find him, shouldn't you?"

Alice went deeper into the forest of dying flowers, stepping over stems and climbing over leaves as she went. She heard the sound of humming and followed it, hoping that there was someone, _anyone_, who could tell her that the White Rabbit was okay. What she found, however, was far from it.

A large green snake with thick spectacles and a small black top hat had his body wrapped tightly around the White Rabbit, the rabbit's brass pocketwatch lying forgotten on the stone ground. He hummed pleasantly, as though he were not slowly choking the life out of the rabbit.

"No! Stop! Let go!" Alice shrieked, startling the snake. He adjusted his glasses with the end of his tail and brought his head closer to Alice to inspect her.

"What'sss thisss? A little bug interrupting my meal?" he asked, stretching out his S sounds as one would expect a stereotypical snake to do. He tightened around the White Rabbit, forcing a strangled cough from him.

"Let go of him! You're hurting him!"

The snake laughed. "That'sss very noble of you, little bug, but I'm afraid I mussst eat and you're barely half of a sssnack." He continued to tighten, and the dead look on the rabbit's face told Alice that she had very little time to save him.

She dug in her pockets for her mushroom pieces, then realized she had left them behind. "Please let him go," she whined, and before she realized it, she was crying.

"Don't cry, dear little bug, I'm sssure you'll find plenty of other rabbitsss."

"You don't understand."

The White Rabbit had stopped choking and fell limp in the snake's grip. The snake unwrapped himself from around the rabbit and Alice began to wipe her tears.

"Mr. Rabbit?" she called.

The snake laughed. "I'm afraid he can't hear you now, bug. Now if you'll pardon me..." The snake dislocated his jaw to open his mouth wide enough to allow the rabbit in, and Alice had to turn away from the sight.

"I see you've finally found that rabbit of yours." Alice looked around and saw Zexion and Lexaeus emerging from the dead flowers. Zexion was looking up at the scene before them with an emotionlessness that would have bothered her had she cared to notice.

"I was too late," she sobbed.

"Yes, I suppose it can't be helped. Not now, at least."

"What do you mean 'not now'?"

"I'm just saying that perhaps if you had gotten here sooner, he may not be dead now. Maybe if you had not stood around dithering about the flowers for so long, for example. If you also had not shrunken yourself so small, you would have been able to get here sooner."

"Are you saying it's my fault?" Alice asked.

"Not exactly that it's your fault he's dead, more that it's your fault he's not alive."

Alice broke out into a new wave of tears and sobs, but neither Zexion nor Lexaeus offered her any comfort. Instead, Zexion sighed and crossed his arms while Lexaeus remained wordless.

"There's no need for crying over spilled milk, or in your case, lost lives. It didn't seem to me that you were as concerned about him as you're trying to make it appear now."

"But I did care. I really did."

"We can sit here and argue as much as you'd like, but that won't change the fact that you stood and did nothing as he died."

"I don't know what I could have done." She wished Lexaeus would stop him or at least slow him down like before at the tea table, but the tall man made no attempt.

"Look at him, Alice." Zexion thrust his finger at the snake and the rabbit. _"Look_ at him." He took Alice's chin and turned her head to face the horror, the White Rabbit's head now completely swallowed. "Do you think your excuses are going to do any good?" The sight of the partially-eaten rabbit and Zexion's words made her begin to cry new tears yet again and she sobbed uncontrollably. The slate-haired man gave a "hmph" and started to walk away. "I shouldn't be surprised that you can't come to terms with the result of your irresponsible inaction. Come along, Lexaeus. I suppose she needs time to think about what she's done." He spoke as if talking about a child in time-out as the two left her alone.

The two walked in silence until Zexion was certain they were out of earshot. "Well, that was fun."

Lexaeus chuckled quietly. "You have a very warped definition of the word fun, you know."

Zexion gave a small wave of his hand and the two were back to their normal sizes. "I know what we can do for fun that the both of us can agree on."

"Oh? And what would that be?"

"I'll give you a hint: I've been thinking about that illusion of us in that forest clearing ever since I made it."

"Then I suggest we remedy that."

"Yes, I highly recommend that we do."


End file.
